


Wasteland, Baby!

by itsfrickenbats



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, basically theo is just sad, boreo, bros being bros, complicated relationship, just..gay shit, mentions of explicit content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsfrickenbats/pseuds/itsfrickenbats
Summary: “So if you still wish to forget, Potter-” he begins before Theo cuts him off in a way that’s sharp, but so incredibly gentle at the same time.“I don’t want to forget,” he says suddenly. Boris is taken aback, eyes widening. “I can… I can try, I think,” Theo continues and Boris frowns in confusion. “I can try not to want to forget,” he clarifies.
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 1
Kudos: 98





	Wasteland, Baby!

A finger presses firmly against the right side of his nose, face all but pressed against the table and Boris’ comforting hand on the small of his back, Theo drags his nose almost effortlessly as he takes the white powder up his left nostril. When Xandra said she wouldn’t be home, Boris and Theo knew they’d take advantage of it, which is exactly what they’re doing. Almost disoriented, in a way, Theo stumbles backward and Boris lets out an airy laugh. “Is good?” he asks, and Theo nods breathlessly.

“Another,” Theo practically pants, and Boris obliges; lithe fingers grasping at the small Ziploc bag and gently tapping the side to put some of the cocaine on the table. He gestures for Theo to pass him the razor blade they’ve been cutting each line with, and when it’s in his hand he uses the flat edge to drag each side of the messy pile into a neat, thin line.

“Here you go, Potter,” Boris laughs, and as soon as he pulls his hand away from the powder, Theo is leaning down and dragging his nose across the table once again. “Is something wrong?” Theo shrugs and Boris furrows his brows. “You are doing more than usual,” he notes. Boris cuts a line for himself, leaving it there and directing his attention to Theo, hand still resting on the small of Theo’s back which is covered by a white button up. The front of his shirt is unbuttoned down to the third button to create some sort of breeze; an attempt Theo is making to alleviate his heightening body temperature.

“I’m fine, Boris,” he dismisses, and watches Boris inhale a line that must be his third by now. Boris gives him a knowing look, and Theo sighs, leaning back on the headboard and resting his head on Boris’ shoulder. “Just want to forget,” he says, and he knows it’s the wrong thing as soon as it passes through his lips. He gnaws on his bottom lip nervously, reddening them even more and Boris can’t help but notice that they are swollen from incessant chewing.

The Russian sighs, dragging his nails against the edge of the bag to close it. They could pick that back up later. “You must always forget, hm, Potter? What are you trying to forget this time?'' His voice is rather gentle, and ‘this’ comes out more as ‘these’ due to his thick accent. Theo finds it soothing; the familiarity of his strong Ukranian drawl and vodka-scented breath a source of comfort, if anything.

“Everything,” Theo breathes out, and Boris shakes his head. “What?” when Boris shakes his head again, Theo repeats himself. “I need to forget everything. I need to forget everything, Boris,” he says, and Boris’ eyebrows furrow. “Please help me forget,” he whispers shakily, dilated pupils beginning to glaze over with tears behind the lenses of his glasses.

Boris sighs, and he shakes his head once again. Theo sighs frustratedly. “Potter,” he mumbles. And for the first time, Theo kisses him. It’s tentative and gentle, but fuelled with more emotion than Boris can comprehend. A careful hand cups the side of Boris’ face before sliding to the back of his neck to pull him closer. When their lips disconnect, Boris rests his forehead against Theo’s. “I cannot make you forget. The most I can do is distract you.”

“Then distract me,” he responds. It was intended to come out confidently, as a command over anything else, but it ends up a shaky whisper. Their sweat-slicked foreheads are pressed against each other’s, drunken breaths shakily brushing over each other’s lips. Boris is so close that Theo can practically taste him, and he doesn’t know which is making him more nervous; Boris’ shaky, alcohol-ridden breaths feathering over his lips, or that Boris still has his hand rested on the small of his back, the other resting just above his knee on his thigh. The room is entirely silent aside from their gentle breaths and the cheap fan blowing cold air over them.

Boris hums, the noise coming from the back of his throat as his lips stay parted. From this angle, he can see every fine detail of Theo’s face; the wide dilation of his pupils - the black almost absorbing the deep brown of his irises, he can see the light shadows casted upon his skin from his long, almost feminine eyelashes, and he can most definitely see his lips. In fact, Theo’s lips are what Boris surveys the most. The way they manage to be chapped, yet soft against his own lips, his neck, his hands, his shoulders. The way they’re blistered from the amount of nervous gnawing Decker made a habit of. “Ya obeshchayu tebe, ya vsegda zdes', chtoby otvlekat' tebya,” (I promise you, I am always here to distract you), he mumbles, and though Theo can only pick up a few words, he doesn’t mind.

Boris kisses him again, and for the first time in a long time, since three years ago when they had first kissed at the mere age of thirteen years old, they lack the usual urgency their kisses usually possess. Their hands don’t grab at each other like they usually do; fervent clutches are replaced with gentle caresses to the sides of each other’s faces and to each other’s shoulders and their bodies seem to mould together perfectly as they press closer to one another. Their breaths are heavy and they don’t pull away until they have to, Boris moving to kiss the top of Theo’s head before they reconnect their lips once more.

They wake up in each other’s arms, Theo’s head resting against Boris’ chest, listening to the gentle thrum of his heartbeat. Theo remembers very little from the night before, but there’s one thing he’s sure of; the usual animal rush they tend to feel during the nights where they just need to stop thinking and end up lost in one another had been replaced with a newfound sense of intimacy. Boris, like Theo, remembers little from the night before, and there’s a few things that he swears he still feels over his body, even though it had been hours before. If they had both remembered one thing, though, it had been the gentle utterances of ‘I love you’ shared between them for the very first time.

But Theo stirs, moving to sit upright as he grabs a pillow. Boris, in a sleepy haze, just groans and pulls the covers up over his bare chest and over his head. Theo grabs the firm, memory foam pillow and takes a swing at the side of Boris’ face. “Boris!” he laughs, “Get! Up!” Each word is punctuated with a hit with the pillow, and it repeats as a cycle until Boris pulls the covers back down and sits up. “Morning, fuckface,” he grins, and the raven haired boy rolls his eyes fondly, unable to hide his wide grin.

“Good morning, Potter,” Boris yawns. His voice is thick with sleep and his accent seems to be even more noticeable with his morning rasp. “Sleep well?” he teases, and Theo almost allows himself to be flustered, but he rolls his eyes and nods. “That is good,” he tells him, because it is; Theo getting a good night’s sleep is rare, and even if they had only slept from three thirty in the morning to eight, it’s something, and for them, something is good.

“I have to say, though,” Theo begins, “I did find it difficult to sleep with your obnoxious snores,” he teases, and Boris gasps in mock offence, picking up his pillow and hitting Theo with it. Some sort of war starts somewhere along the way, and alcohol is fizzing into the cheap, worn in carpet, and the blanket somehow manages to fly across the room. Theo’s glasses are somewhere on the bed and they’ve abandoned the pillows, Boris opting to lift the hem of Theo’s - well, Boris’, actually - t-shirt and starting to lightly tickle his stomach, causing loud laughs to erupt from Decker’s throat.

“This,” Boris moves lithe digits up to under his arms, “is what you get,” he continues, and his fingers jab into the smaller boy’s side, “for waking me,” he starts to tickle Theo’s hips, “by hitting me in the fucking face!” Boris laughs, pulling the hem of Theo’s shirt back down so it covers all the way down to the middle of his black boxers (that Boris also notices belonged to him originally.)

“I fucking hate you,” Theo gasps out, trying to catch his breath after laughing so hard. Boris smiles, genuinely, and the other swears his heart skips a beat.

“No, you don’t,” Boris drawls and he shoves Theo gently with the palm of his hand on his shoulder. Theo agrees with a gentle nod and a soft ‘you’re right,’ and Boris’ grin widens. “Ha! Potter,” he exclaims, taking Theo’s glasses and opening the arms for him, sliding them gently on his face. “Look at you!” he continues, pinching at Theo’s reddened cheek.

Theo swats Boris’ hand away, slapping his arm right after. “Shut the fuck up,” he laughs. He takes this chance to look Boris up and down. Theo studies the way his dark, ebony curls are tousled, yet still manage to fall over his pale forehead perfectly. He takes note of Boris’ swollen lips, and Theo swears he feels his breath hitch just looking at them. Theo takes note of the bruises littered over his skin; some are his own doing, but he knows there’s others on his arms and stomach that might not have been from such blissful nights. He notices the way his athletic shorts that definitely didn’t originally belong to him - he must’ve gotten them from Theo’s drawer some time after Theo had sunk into the bed to sleep, because they were the tiniest bit too tight in the waist to fit him as well as they fit Theo - hang low enough on his hips to show the small dimples in the tops of his hip bones.

Boris’ eyebrows knit together after catching Theo’s gaze, and he looks at him knowingly. Theo diverts his gaze to a tipped over beer on the floor. “Potter,” Boris mumbles gently, and his eyes are carefully trained on Theo’s face now. He receives a hum in response and takes that as a signal to continue. “Are we going to talk about it?” he asks, and Theo’s eyes snap back to Boris warily. “Well?”

Theo’s eyes fall shut for one second presses his thumb and middle finger into his brow bones, sighing a little. He takes a moment, before resting his hands in his own lap and looking at Boris nervously. “Are we?” he breathes. “Or do we just… forget it?”

Boris huffs and Theo mutters a ‘what?’, to which he huffs again. “You must always forget!” he exclaims, and it’s obvious in the cracks in his voice that he’s in this strange state between confused and hurt that makes Theo’s heart twist wickedly in his chest. “Why do you need to forget, Potter? Tell me,” he asks, eyebrows furrowing once again.

“I don’t,” Theo mumbles hesitantly after a short silence. Boris’ features soften and his face falls, but he isn’t upset. “I don’t have to forget anything, Boris,” Theo admits. “It’s just easier to,” he speaks breathily, but he isn’t whispering, and it’s the type of breathlessness that Boris has never heard before. It intrigues him.

“Why is it easier?” Boris asks, and though he knows the answer, he needs to hear it or he’s fairly sure he’ll never be able to believe it. “We’ve done these things before. Why is it easier to forget this time?” For some reason, Theo wanting to forget last night makes Boris’ eyes begin to prick with tears he isn’t sure he has in him. He insists to himself that he doesn’t cry.

Theo’s mouth pulls into a tight lipped frown, and he makes a wary attempt to glance back up at Boris. He holds his gaze, looking not at Boris’ eyes, in fact, he’s looking anywhere but - gaze shifting from his cheeks, to his forehead, to his nose, to his lips. “Because it isn’t forgettable,” Decker tells the other, and he receives a confused glance. “I’m not saying anything we’ve done is forgettable, but I don’t know. You told me you…” Boris nods. “And I told you I…” he nods again. “So it’s easier for me to pretend it didn’t happen than face it,” he admits, tears springing in his eyes.

“Did you mean it?” Boris asks shakily. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest that he feels like it might burst from his rib cage and soar into Theo’s hands. It’s almost as if his heart isn’t his own, anyways - it belongs to Theo entirely.

Theo nods, slowly and hesitantly. “Did you?” he asks with the same amount of nervousness laced into his tone. His chest is tightening in a sickening way that makes him feel like he could vomit.

“Every word,” Boris admits. Theo’s eyes widen, and he receives a nod in response. “So if you still wish to forget, Potter-” he begins before Theo cuts him off in a way that’s sharp, but so incredibly gentle at the same time.

“I don’t want to forget,” he says suddenly. Boris is taken aback, eyes widening. “I can… I can try, I think,” Theo continues and Boris frowns in confusion. “I can try not to want to forget,” he clarifies. “I don’t… I don’t think I want to forget. I sure as hell know I won’t be able to,” he sighs.

“You want to remember?” Boris asks, and Theo nods. They stay silent; Theo curling into Boris’ arms, feeling his strong, somehow simultaneously gentle grip on his waist and pulling him closer until they drift off to sleep. They don’t address it, and their dynamic barely shifts, and Theo remembers that he finds comfort in the continuity, but also in that Boris is a surprise in himself.

Their relationship isn’t one that could be considered conventional. In fact, it’s anything but, though, they find it to be nice. Theo and Boris may not have labelled themselves, even after that night, but they don’t feel they have to. Their relationship is better without labels, anyways; it’s better if left unspoken in their own way. The thing that matters, though, is that they’re safe with each other.

They love each other, even if they can’t repeat it.


End file.
